warehfandomcom-20200214-history
Ancient Historians (S11)
SRS200-06: The Ancient Historians (S11) ;Instructor: Tarik Wareh ;What is a Sophomore Research Seminar? (including a list of the learning outcomes sought in common by all SRS's) In this course we will learn the research methods appropriate to interpreting ancient literary texts. Our investigations are based on a careful study of one genre of ancient literature, historiography (the narratives of such ancient historians as Herodotus, Thucydides, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus). The works of the ancient historians do not correspond to any single familiar kind of modern literature. They should not be thought of as mere sources of facts (though they are precious in that capacity also). They are much more, including: * imaginatively and dramatically presented narratives, using the fictional storyteller's traditional toolbox to develop and explain characters and their motivations; * philosophical explorations of the nature and principles of history, politics, justice, power, empire, human nature, religion, etc.; * expressive masterpieces of prose style, in which the author's attitude and thoughts are reflected in the detailed construction of each sentence and speech. Through a series of daily and longer-term assignments we will progress through the following overlapping stages of mastering our subject and completing an original research project: #careful reading of the Greek and Roman historians in English translation; #exploring and describing the ideas, purposes, and techniques of the ancient historians; #developing the skills needed to sustain an evidence-based argument (from thesis and overall argument to the sophisticated handling of the text's details); #building, annotating, and organizing a bibliography of critical secondary readings (including expert use of the library's resources); #practicing the proper citation of sources; #applying the critical and interpretive methodologies we find in secondary readings to our primary-text readings; #analyzing how selected concepts and themes are treated in a changing and evolving way over the course of a continuous literary tradition; #preparing a final research paper of 15-18 pages, in which the ongoing scholarly conversation about our authors' aims, methods, and contexts (cultural, historical, political, intellectual, etc.) supports our own original interpretations. (Those who wish to focus on the writings of Julius Caesar in their final paper may do so, as the study of the Greco-Roman historiographic tradition is the best background against which to understand Caesar's own literary work.) Requirements, assignments, and policies Reading schedule Required books The historians' techniques * Herodotean techniques * Thucydidean techniques * Sallustian techniques * Livian techniques * Tacitean techniques Online bibliographic research * Schaffer catalog, online journals, Connect NY * L'Année philologique, JSTOR, EBSCO Academic Search Premier, WorldCat FirstSearch * ISI Web of Knowledge, HW Wilson Web, Literature Resource Center * PINAX: An Annotated List of Web Bibliographies on the Ancient Greek World Bibliographies Note: This section contains both our own course bibliographies (which you will help develop, annotate, and organize) and links to bibliographies elsehwere. Some of linked bibliographies are for a general English-speaking undergraduate audience, whereas others contain items that will be useful to us among many more items for a scholarly audience that reads Latin, Greek, and several modern languages (Classics is a very international field of scholarship!). * Historiography bibliography (comparative/survey works and others that don't fit into the author categories below) * Herodotus bibliography ** Elsewhere: William A. Johnson * Thucydides bibliography ** Elsewhere: Lowell Edmunds, Margaret Zulick * Sallust bibliography ** Elsewhere: Alain Gowing * Livy bibliography ** Elsewhere: Walter Englert, Timothy J. Moore * Tacitus bibliography ** Elsewhere: Alain Gowing Project 1: Applying a Critical Method * Thucydides on Justice by Kevin Barker * Thucydides taking sides by Tucker Diestel * Narrator Interventions by Henry Farrell * Realism vs. Ethics in Thucydides, by Amy Glidden * Historian Voice Overs, by David MacMinn * The Role of the Reader in Thucydides by Christopher Paolini * Thucydides as a Tragic Writer , by Spencer Pearlman * Disease to Human Nature in Thucydides, by Shawn Stuart * Human Nature in Thucydides , by Omer Zaidi Project 2: Comparative topic study * Religion and Human Nature, by Kevin Barker * Realism vs Authenticity, by Tucker Diestel * Nature of the Mob, by Henry Farrell * The Fragility of Fate, by Amy Glidden * Self-Sufficiency, by Chris Paolini * The Lust of Power, by Spencer Pearlman * Money and Power Corrupting, by Shawn Stuart * The Nature of Fear, by Omer Zaidi